<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'I ... bought cigarettes for the first time.',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;m not sure how private this is supposed to be, as it&apos;s been only in private messages on $a[IRC], but I&apos;ve been having an ... interesting conversation with someone.
		It feels like practice for something later.
		Anyway, I mention it because they&apos;ve been calling me by both masculine and feminine nicknames, which has been very nice, to say the least.
		I wonder if anyone will ever do that offline, where everyone seems to assume I&apos;m masculine.
		I wouldn&apos;t mind having a boyfriend call me Lexi sometimes and Xander other times, both at home and when we&apos;re out.
	</p>
	<p>
		It seems my friend from work doesn&apos;t know how to use email.
		They ... put everything in the title of the email, and nothing in the message body.
		I&apos;d say maybe they&apos;re just computer illiterate, but it seems they also don&apos;t know how to spell several very basic words.
		I still wouldn&apos;t mind hanging out with them today if I didn&apos;t have coursework to catch up on.
		I&apos;ve spent this last week in emotional turmoil, so I haven&apos;t been as productive as I should be.
	</p>
	<p>
		Someone on $a[IRC] pointed me toward a couple dating sites and a few cities.
		Distant cities, but still cities on the west coast.
		Supposedly, San Francisco has both a high gay population and a high vegan population.
		Is there enough of an overlap there?
		Not sure, but it&apos;s worth looking into once I&apos;m in a more stable situation.
		I don&apos;t have the funds to take time off of work to bike to distant cities.
		Other cities with a high gay population were said to include Seattle, Portland, Las Angelus, and potentially San Diego.
	</p>
	<p>
		My old church tracked me down.
		I&apos;m not sure how they did it.
		When I was a member of the church, which was when I was a child, I went by my then-legal name.
		Later, long after my family and the church parted ways, I started trying to go by my middle name.
		That ended at some point, though long after I quit trying to use my middle name, my mother started calling me by it.
		In any case, the church should know me by my old given name and one of my old addresses.
		Instead, they came looking for &quot;[birth middle name] [birth surname]&quot; at my current address.
		How did they get that name?
		And how did they find my new address!?
		I asked them about it, but they either lied or there are too many layers to their operation.
		Honestly, I suspect the latter.
		In any case, they claimed not to know how.
		Additionally, when they asked if I was &quot;[birth middle name] [birth surname]&quot;, I responded that I <strong>*used*</strong> to be &quot;[birth given name] [birth middle name] [birth surname]&quot;.
		They asked again, and I replied the same.
		This time, they asked what I meant, and I explained the legal name change.
		They offered to update my name in their records, so I asked them to instead remove my name from the records.
		They claimed not to be able to do that, but said there&apos;s a complicated process I can go through if I want it done.
		Nah, not that big of a deal.
		I just assumed since they claimed they could update it, they could likewise redact.
		I&apos;m very curious as to how these people find me though.
		First the $a[FSF], then the Mormon church ...
	</p>
	<p>
		One of my neighbours asked me to buy them cigarettes.
		I&apos;m not the type to want to enable this, but I do want to get along with my neighbours and not seem judgemental.
		I agreed to go (they supplied the money, of course), and when I got back, we talked for a bit.
		It&apos;s so weird having two valid $a[DMV] $a[ID]s.
		Any time I don&apos;t want to associate something with myself, I just use the old $a[ID].
		That&apos;s what I did to prove it was legal to buy the product.
		Why didn&apos;t the $a[DMV] void this thing!?
		I guess maybe they thought that since I&apos;d gone through the trouble to change my name in court, I wouldn&apos;t want to use my old name for anything and would destroy the old $a[ID].
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t remember how it came up, but I mentioned the Mormons tracking me down and the strangeness with the names.
		They said they liked my name from before the change, so I explained it was a nice name, but too masculine for me.
		They seemed very confused, so I explained about my lack of gender, and they asked about my sexuality.
		I guess they jumped to that because we have a neighbour that had a masculine, female friend.
		The neighbour then decided to identify as masculine too, despite not at all having the thoughts, feelings, and self-perception that go along with that.
		I identified as gay, and they were surprised.
		I admitted to being surprised as well, and only finding out three weeks ago.
		That obviously raised questions, so I had to explain the hierarchy of needs and my abusive mother.
		We discussed Vanessa, still trapped there.
		I need to find time to visit again and get Vanessa one-on-one long enough to get her new email address.
		We then discussed politics and conspiracy theories.
		It was a bizarre conversation altogether, to say the least.
	</p>
	<p>
		The other day, when I was too nervous to look at dresses with other customers around, I looked at other stuff instead.
		One thing I found was printer ink, but I didn&apos;t know if it&apos;d fit my printer.
		Today though, I glanced at my printer and noticed the model name.
		I recognise that as being the model the ink cartridges are for.
		Tomorrow probably, I&apos;ll have ink!
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mental">
	<h2>Mental health watch</h2>
	<p>
		Who am I kidding?
		There&apos;s no chance I&apos;ll find love.
		I&apos;m too quirky, too different.
		I hate this new-found sexuality.
		This morning, I wished again that I could just rip it out of me.
	</p>
	<p>
		According to the Wikipedia page, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Dancer">spinning dancer</a> image isn&apos;t actually a viable test for telling which side of the brain is dominant.
		I&apos;ve been bothered by the results of this &quot;test&quot; but they aren&apos;t actually test results.
		Additionally, most people are right-handed (left-brained), and the common view of this image is that it spins clockwise, which is what I&apos;ve been seeing with it.
		If the image had anything to do with dominant brain hemispheres, the correlation would be the opposite of what had been stated it was.
		Though it seems not to matter, I can get the dancer to spin the other way more easily now, though I can&apos;t do it every time.
		Also, again, when I get exited, it goes back to spinning clockwise.
		Maybe this is due to a lack of focus.
		Or maybe it&apos;s due to a placebo effect.
	</p>
	<p>
		I spent the morning composing a letter to my mother, then not sending it.
		It was incredibly therapeutic.
		It&apos;s based on a future scenario though.
		If my mother asks me to come with her when she moves, I&apos;ll say I can&apos;t.
		If she asks why, I&apos;ll write:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Why can&apos;t I come with you?
			I can either tell you that your home environment is toxic or I can go into exactly how broken it left me.
			Which would you prefer?
			I actually wrote up a ten-page letter to you about it on 2017-07-05, but never sent it.
			It was part of the recovery process.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		Depending on her choice, she&apos;ll get the letter.
		In all likelihood though, the offer will never come and the letter will never be sent.
		Simply having written it is enough.
		It took about four hours, but it was very therapeutic.
		The funny part was that it was never meant to be that long or be therapeutic.
		It was a crazy attempt to prepare for an event that will never actually come.
		I now feel ... empty, in a good way.
		Not hollow, like there&apos;s nothing of value inside, but like a huge pressure has been released.
		After composing it, I tried to reach out to Vanessa.
		She needs support too, and I wanted to let her know I&apos;m here for her if anything happens.
		However, it seems she&apos;s changed her email address.
	</p>
	<p>
		My rationality seems to be coming back into control, pushing my sexuality back into the corner it belongs in.
		It&apos;s hilarious.
		My emotional side was very upset about this new-found sexuality, but my emotional side is likely <strong>*to blame*</strong> for my sexuality.
		No emotional side, no feelings of loneliness and yearning for a boyfriend.
		With my rationality being more in control again, I better see I didn&apos;t do this to myself and it can&apos;t be undone (not safely, anyway).
		I&apos;m not sure if my hand experiments actually helped put my rationality back in control or if it was some sort of placebo effect, but whatever it was, it worked.
		My affliction, while still present, is under control for the time being.
		Then again, it could be because I drained my emotional side with that letter to my mother I mentioned.
		That might&apos;ve left me unable to feel for a bit.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
